I have been a bit of a magnet for drama today, of the non-animated variety. I wouldn’t want you to get confused and think I became obsessed with some creepy mind-reading hobo or finding my parent’s killer. You know what? My troubles don’t seem so bad next to all these poor saps in Tiger & Bunny. That’s the beauty of melodrama…pointing and laughing at people worse off than yourself!

As shown in the preview, Kriem has woken up in the hospital and is ready to be questioned about why Jake killed Barnaby’s parents. Barnaby heads to the hospital, meaning that he just misses Kotetsu as he returns to the headquarters to break the news of his resignation to the other heroes. However, once he ends up with all his old friends again, he can’t find the time to tell them in between all the “Welcome back!” conversation. He decides to tell his partner first, so he goes to the hospital himself.

EMBLEM’S FACE IS MEEEELLLTIIIING

Kotetsu figured he could tell Barnaby about quitting since he would be in a good mood from getting closure about his parent’s death but…once again…no dice. Barnaby looks more stressed than relieved, so Kotetsu clams up once again. Once Kriem is stable, the two of them enter her room and start questioning her about Jake. When she was little, everyone was afraid of her – even her parents. She hated her life. Then one day, Jake kidnapped her.

Jake tried to get her parents to pay a ransom fee, but they were more relieved than anything that their demon daughter was taken off of their hands. Kriem begs Jake to kill her and end her miserable life, but he just frees her and explains that it’s NEXT who are superior. Humans are just afraid of their potential, and will take any opportunity to push them down. Overcome with a mix of admiration and stockholm syndrome, she follows Jake and becomes his sidekick.

“Your daughter has been kidnapped!” “……..Meh.”

Kotetsu kindly explains that hurting people who hurt you doesn’t fix things…it just makes YOU the persecutor. It’s a bit too late for Kriem to change her ways, so she starts ripping out all sorts of tubes and breathing apparatuses so that she can die after she tells them one thing: Jake didn’t kill Barnaby’s parents. The night they died, he had kidnapped Kriem. Before they can ask anything else, she has a seizure and then dies. Barnaby is shocked, but still insistent that Jake killed his parents.

The two of them go through old tapes of Jake’s hi-jacked broadcast to see if it was him. Barnaby claims the killer had a tattoo on his right hand, but Jake has nothing of the sort. Barnaby freaks out and starts recalling the night of his parent’s death with various different murderers. He eventually calms down to the point where they can sit down and reason everything out. That’s when Kotetsu is interrupted by a phonecall.

Apparently Kaede has been breaking everything in the house with her powers. Not only that, but she started to act like a magnet, and is attracting all sorts of metal objects. For now they think she has two powers, but Kaede later explains that she can copy the powers of the last NEXT she touches. NEXT drama aside, Kotetsu’s mom scolds him for not coming back sooner to stop her daughter from destroying the house.

After the call, Barnaby makes a phonecall of his own. He calls his maid, Samantha, and asks where she was the night of his parent’s death. Kotetsu promptly stops him once he realizes he is accusing a sweet old lady of murder, and tells him to calm down. He shouldn’t trust that faulty memory of his. As Kotetsu tries to tell him he’s going to quit, Barnaby interrupts him. He doesn’t know what Kotetsu is going to say, but he knows it’s bad and he doesn’t want to hear the words. He tells Kotetsu to go home to her daughter developing NEXT abilities and then says he might have to quit being a hero. NO BARNABY, NOOO!!!

Barnaby might really have to quit at this rate. He’s having visions of the killer being either Kotetsu or…himself. Yes. Himself. Luckily, Kotetsu doesn’t seem to be returning to Kaede any time soon given how messed up his partner is. Kaede is not pleased.

“I, Wild Tiger….” and the rest of the speech didn’t go quite as planned

Someone please photoshop KotetsuxBarnaby yaoi onto that screen, and I will love you forever

Sure is derp in here

End Thoughts:

Can we just have Kaede replace Ivan now? She doesn’t have the useless ability to copy looks, which is only good in a set amount of situation. She can actually copy abilities. She is insanely OP. The only downside is that she won’t be able to use the power as well as the original user, who has spent years honing their NEXT abilities. But would you really care about experience when you could become Magneto? I WOULDN’T. With this much power, it’s be a waste if they didn’t give her at least a segment, if not an episode, where she has her own spotlight. I say this because I’d rather her being competent and fighting crime than just being a sassy Barnaby fangirl.

The two main parts of this episode are essentially Kriem’s past and Barnaby’s delusions. Kotetsu’s issues, once again, are pushed aside for the sake of others. I don’t know how long he’s going to last without announcing his resignation or at least telling his partner that his powers are waning. I guess Barnaby will find out instead of Kotetsu telling him, at this rate. For now, it’s all about Barnaby again. As mean as it sounds, I like seeing him go back into angsty Batman mode. I feel like Maverick is tinkering with his memories. I don’t know how, but he always seemed a little too eager to have Barnaby remember his killer’s face. The poor blonde doesn’t even seem to be in control of what he remembers and when (hence the…you know…screaming…). It may be that he has severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and just recalls memories against his will, but to recall conflicting memories? He’s either really crazy or someone else is messing him up BAD. How the hell do you suspect YOURSELF as the killer when you don’t even have a tattoo? Don’t you dare tell me he has an evil twin from the future…

While I really enjoyed seeing Barnaby take a turn for the worse, I didn’t really care much for Kriem’s little spiel. Her arc is done…it’s kind of late for getting me to sympathize. It became clear when she started removing her life support (way to stop her, T&B bros) that she was going to die right then and there anyways. At least we know more about their motivation and why Kriem was such a creep. I wish Jake had kept his hair black, or NON-TECHNICOLOUR at the very least. He looked a lot more dapper back then.

Preview: All I can say is that the next episode will be full of Barnaby drama exploding everywhere and Kotetsu trying to clean up the mess. It’s not like this is a show about fighting crime or anything.

18 Responses to “Tiger & Bunny – 18”

My guess is that Kriem’s background was provided as a warning about Kaede. At the moment Kaede is being ignored (again) by her father. He could do the opposite of Kriem’s parents, and show her that he cares about her, and that she is accepted as she is, but he isn’t there. He is abandoning her just like Kriem’s parents abandoned her to Jake.

The magnetic ability was an interesting point. Supposedly she gains the abilities of the latest Next she has encountered. This means that after Tiger left her, Kaede came in contact with another Next. I wonder who that is?

It’s nice as a parallel to Kriem, but she’s not being abused like she was it’s not as bad. Still, Kotetsu should pay more attention to her daughter and make sure she doesn’t end up misusing her powers.

I was also wondering who else she touched…I would have thought the brother would at least tell Kotetsu if he had a power, but it’s definitely a possibility. The only other option is some random character from school or something afterall.

I didn’t like Kriem’s backstory much, it was overdone and kind of silly. I loved the interactions between Tiger and Barnaby, though; I knew that he wouldn’t be able to retire this episode, but I didn’t think it would be because Bunny’s memory started to decay. I’m glad he hasn’t forgotten all of his character development after learning that his parents’ killer is alive, too – he doesn’t revert to his old, jerky self, and he’s pretty considerate of Tiger even when he’s going through a really horrible time. It’s gonna be hard for Tiger to choose between his kid and partner, they’re both in bad places right now

As for Bunny’s memories my favorite theory is that those oxygen chambers were altering his memories into Jake being the killer, and it just wore off. Mr. Maverick has made himself very suspicious, and it seems that the show’s been setting this kind of thing up for a while. Either way, though, I want to see where this arc goes now that we have drama with a more pleasant Bunny.

I like how well they always handle Barnaby and Kotetsu’s interactions. I’m glad Barnaby isn’t completely shutting his partner out, and still maintains that bond of trust. I was suspicious of those oxygen chambers too…I wonder if they still go in them offscreen…

It’s yet another one of those things where you choose between two necessities and try to decide which one is for the greater good. It happens a lot, and it’s never an easy decision to make.

Yay! The drama with Barnaby is back! I am looking forward to the next episode so much right now. I missed all that drama with Kotetsu and Barnaby. Oh fillers.
I love Kaede so much, I laughed when she went magnetic. Yes her power is SO OP omg.

Kotetsu was actually able to say the next episode’s title in the preview! I’m amazed.

Bah, Barnaby is back. -.- On one hand, I’m happy for everyone who is happy with the show… on the other hand, I want to sulk in a corner by myself that the Tiger’s happy waifu has again been replaced by an emo asshat.

Kaede absolutely should replace Ivan. She’s bratty, but she’s spunky, plus that power is amazing ~ I do have to wonder who she got the magnet power from though. Or if she realized she got her first power from her dad.

He couldn’t be a doting housewife forever. We all knew he could only last so long before he became Batman again :/ As long as he’s not as much of an asshole as he was in the beginning of the series.

Ivan can just sell beer with Kotetsu’s brother while Kaede gets all the glory. I hope we’re not reading too much into the magnetic thing only to have them say “LOL WE’RE NOT TELLING WHO SHE GOT IT FROM.” I don’t think Kaede really is noticing who she’s getting the powers from though :/

You know, you asked for Kotetsu x Barnaby, but it was actually quite hard to find! At first I would only find images of Barnaby x Kotetsu. Luckily, perseverance rewards, as you can see. The only thing left was hope you’d like the picture I used, because you did ask for ‘yaoi’ but the one yaoi-KxB image I could find didn’t quite look as nice. :/
So, I’m glad you liked it. 8D It made it all worthwhile for me~

Oh, and btw, nearly every time you write a caption under a screenshot I laugh my ass off. Especially with the No.6 ones. The ‘not quite what he meant by spooning’ killed me. XD